Statement by President Michael D. Higgins - Leland Bardwell
Date: Thu 30th Jun, 2016 | 20:43
30 June 2016
"It is with great sadness that I have learnt of the passing of Leland Bardwell.
Leland was a truly unique poet and novelist, passionate, unsparing, accurate and, in her fashion, wise.
She was generous and hospitable to new voices, and through her work in Cyphers, Aosdána and the Irish Writer’s Co-operative, created spaces for others to flourish. She was indeed a friend at a crucial point in their lives to many writers who have gone on to gain considerable reputations.
Leland has left an impressive body of work, which has given us warm, witty, deeply personal descriptions of the truth and beauty that is everyday life.
She had a sophisticated imagination that could accept and value the local, a deliberate simplicity of style that was everywhere at home. She was widely loved.
At a time when the world of an Irish writer was often narrow, bitter and constrained, she turned from a full and often hectic life to pursue her own truth, furnishing the world with poems, plays, novels, radio plays and a memoir, work that is distinctive for its compassion, its wise detachment, its humour and its acceptance of human frailty.
She has been able to touch many lives and will be missed not only by her friends and family but by all those who value and enjoy the power of a well chosen word."